Too Little, Too Late
by Pippa6100
Summary: Three years. It has been three years since you last saw Terezi Pyrope at the oh-so delightful, hellish age of thirteen. The bane of your existence. The light of your life. And when you do see her again, it's all too little, too late. Humanstuck Karezi.


Written for the prompt given by coffeemugkisses on tumblr when I asked for angsty ship prompts. The prompt was, "Some Humanstuck Karezi where they meet up again after a long time. But the meeting doesn't go as well as Karkat hoped." Inspired somewhat by the song "Falling" by The Civil Wars. Reviews are appreciated!

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Three years. It has been three years since you last saw Terezi Pyrope at the oh-so-fucking delightful, hellish age of thirteen.

Bright, with a sharp sense of humor, if twisted at times. A laugh that could grate on your ears while still making your heart beat quicker. Clear, quick eyes that would narrow at you mischievously, a shark grin that would snake across her face way too often to be natural.

The bane of your existence. The light of your life.

When you hear she had to move far away, a whole state and a couple hours away, you are angry. You are hurt.

You try to say it, again and again, to tell her. How much she means to you. How much you want to be with her and stay with her even while she drives you insane.

You try, and can't get a word in edgewise.

She teases, she talks on and on, she provokes you. And it's normal of her, something you tolerate, something you hate as much as you love her. And all those feelings you've never asked for, love for her and anger at everything, anger always pent up inside you since you were small, breaks you.

She grins and laughs as you try to speak, cutting you off. Driving you crazy, finally asking in that goddamn teasing tone of hers how much you'll miss her.

You yell at her, "Who the hell ever said I was going to miss you?!"

The shift in her face is gradual. The grin falters into a thin line, the teasing tone dead, her eyes flat and glassy.

"...Alright."

And you don't fucking go after her and fix one of the biggest mistakes of your life. You don't keep in contact after she leaves. You don't send her that birthday card you tried to make for her when she turned fourteen because you fucked it up so badly with the shittiest apology, why would she ever want to read it? You don't call back when you get the chipper voicemail saying she's going to be in town that weekend and wants to catch up.

You don't talk to her when you hear she's in an accident. You fly out with Aradia to the hospital, and you follow her to the room. You even buy her a shitty bouquet of flowers from the hospital gift shop you nearly kill in your clenched hands as you ascend the stairs to where she is.

Not that they mattered, because she'd wouldn't be able to see them.

She'd never be able to see anything again.

Aradia goes to the room and you hang in the doorway like a complete dumbass, completely silent. Terezi looks different from the one that you knew, the one you love - the grin on her face still there, but the bandages around her eyes painful to look at. That goddamn cheerful tone of voice she talks about with success rates and how much visibility she has and how her life will be from now on, the curious tilt in her voice as she asks who else is there to visit.

You shove the flowers at Aradia, motioning violently for her not to breathe a word, and you leave the room before you do something idiotic like cry. The whole visit, you never speak a word to her. She doesn't know you were ever there.

You are sixteen, and you are facing her for the first time in three years. It's a chance encounter. It hits you out of nowhere.

You can't see the scarring around her eyes with those glasses of hers, a huge relief. The cane is unexpected. The grin is still there, but when it hears your voice, it turns hollow. She waits for you to speak, to say anything.

And for the first time in forever, regarding her, how you felt, you speak the truth.

"I missed you."

And it's all too little, too late.

And just as it did three years ago, the grin slides off her face. She opens her mouth, the hurt evident in her tone.

"...Who the hell ever said that?"

And you stand there in silence as Terezi Pyrope leaves your life for the second time.

The End


End file.
